I write poetry because it helps me make sense of the world around and inside me. It piques my interest in the past and prods me to think more about the present and the future. I find the act of writing poetry joyful and self-reinforcing, even when the content of my poems is about sad or traumatic events. Please visit my website: martinlevinson.com.

Elegy for my Father

​ He’d come home from the office,collapse on the couch,bitch, bitch, bitch.Marvin’s backstabbing me in front ofMilton who is badmouthing me to Max whois stealing my ideas, saying that they’re his.I wanted to be out of the house when he wasin it and when home I‘d flip the conversationto anything but his goddamn work. Yet he wasgood at what he did and mom said he stayed at thefirm ‘cause he had a family to support which if hedidn’t he would have gone into business on his own.

I’m glad he left me alone when I was a kid,never asked me how my day was, didn’t lectureme about the birds and the fucking bees.I’m glad he threw the paper at me when I dissedhim, let me drop out of cub scouts, didn’t give arat’s ass about me cutting out of school.Thanks for finding a lawyer to get me offfor scalping the 1964 World Series ticketsyour company gave you that you gave me.Thanks for not hitting me when I hoisteda Hamilton from your wallet to go withmy buddies to Coney Island. Thanks forsaying a zillion times life’s unfair andyou got to watch out for yourself becauseit’s a tough world out there and your mothersees it through rose-colored glasses whichshe can afford to since she’s got a husbandwho knows the score. That was good adviceand I wish I couldthank you for it now butliving to ninety-one is a pretty good run andin the end with my shopping for your foodand keeping mom company when you werein the hospital, I wasn’t such a bad son.

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